Sunday morning and football usually rings true in my household but this morning brings me away from the television (what is the world coming to) and into a sports bar. I know where you think this is going but actually I am sitting around a room of fellow web developers and designers at the CFUnderground conference. Some really cool items were handed out during registration like a limited edition CFUnderground t-shirt, logo emblazon beer mug and from Adobe a cool usb light/fan combo.

First glance around the room would think we were waiting for a blind date in a dark bar, the only exception being the tables laden with laptops and a hugh Adobe banner hanging on the wall. The first announcement was that unfortunately Simon Horwith would not be available to speak on "Putting Bread On The Table - Improving Your Marketability" but would be available later for the Q&A session.

Session 1: Understanding Database Performance

Very interesting discussion on indexing, query plans and optimization. The availability of database interaction between ColdFusion and some tools to help monitor the performance like SeeFusion. I consider myself pretty database proficient and discovered a few interesting factoids.

• Too many joins effect performance and will result in table scans regardless of indexes being used.
• Use Union's instead of a global "OR" statement when filtering on multiple columns.
• Watch out for merge joins in query plans (these are a red flag for performance).

Session 2: Top notch testing techniques

Discussion on various testing techniques, the importance of performing testing and tools like CFUNIT. Just a sample of techniques discussed included:

• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Regression testing
• Acceptance testing

Session 3: Troubleshooting and Optimizing CFMX Performance

Discussion of tuning your ColdFusion applications from a JRUN platform. Various topics included:

• JVM tuning
• Threads and garbage collection
• Memory leaks

Session 4: Object Oriented ColdFusion

A discussion on Object Oriented terms and definitions surrounding CFCs, the different ways to instantiate a component and how to invoke methods. Topics included:

• Instantiation.
• Encapsulation.
• 3 ways to invoke a class and it's methods.

Session 5: Confessions of a CF Assassin

Why projects fail and why you already know how to resolve the issues but just don't know you know the answers. A interesting discussion on small to large scale projects and such topics as cross-side scripting, sql injection and self introduced errors that just shouldn't be there and can easily be fixed with a little thought and consideration when developing. Topics included:

• How to recognize you have a problem
• Case studies and examples of application failure
• Security, performance and maintainability

Session 6: ColdFusion Q&A

Panel of 4 including Jason Delmore Product Manager for ColdFusion at Adobe Systems Incorporated share with us upcoming ColdFusion 8 features, the always heated framework discussion and general questions and answers of anything and everything ColdFusion.